


Have You Ever Danced with the Devil

by Paratale



Series: All Those Times They Didn't Kiss [5]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: ....of a third party, Coda, Episode: s06e19 In The Pale Moonlight, Gen, M/M, POV First Person, Pre-Slash, Protective Odo, just bear with me i'm working up to it, log format, one day i'll write something that isn't pre-slash or one night stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 05:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7495419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paratale/pseuds/Paratale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sisko muses on an unusual conversation he had with Odo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Have You Ever Danced with the Devil

_From the personal logs of Captain Benjamin Sisko_

_auto-recovery-file023.voice_

 

It’s been three days since I recorded and deleted a log detailing… the _joint venture_ undertaken by Garak and myself, let’s call it. But there’s one detail that I keep coming back to; that I haven’t quite sorted out yet. I didn’t even mention it the first time, because compared to what Garak and I were trying to do, it seemed trivial and small.

So. In the Academy command track, we learned that when it comes to making important decisions, respect for your crew is just as important as tactical prowess.

I don’t like acting against the wishes of my officers. I especially don’t like ordering them to do things against their conscience. I was fortunate that Doctor Bashir understands the importance of the chain of command in these situations; that he was willing to follow my orders anyway. Even so, the situation was thorny. What started as a plot between Garak, myself and select few Starfleet higher-ups was starting to interfere with life on the station.

Odo must have come to the same conclusion, because he came to see me not hours after Bashir left my office. Well, that’s what I assumed. It turned out to be something… a bit more personal than security concerns. I suppose I had better just record it all now, because if I don’t, I might fool myself into believing it was all some strange daydream.

Anyway. I immediately knew this our talk wasn’t going be friendly, because Odo schedules all his friendly appointments in advance.

“Captain.” He began with a stiff greeting—even stiffer than his usual demeanor, another bad sign. He related to me that he had just approved Bashir’s request to transport the biomimetic gel, on my orders.

“If you have a complaint to relay, Odo, I’m willing to hear it, but it won’t change my decision,” I told him.

“Not precisely a complaint,” he replied, and I could already hear a growl in his voice. He was building up to an angry outburst—it’s been long enough that I can tell. Suffice to say, I knew I was in for a scolding.

Odo glared at me down his nose, probably adding a couple inches to his own height as he did so. He asked me, “Does this shipment of biomimetic gel have anything to do with Grathon Tolar?”

I tried to deflect; said the biomimetic gel was being used for a classified Starfleet venture and that I was not at liberty to confirm or deny any connection to Tolar’s work.

Odo wasn’t buying it. He looked like he was being pulled tight as a drum. “Captain,” he said, “it is my duty as Chief of Security to express my utmost disapproval of whatever Starfleet machinations have necessitated collaborating with a violent criminal and trafficking highly controlled substances.”

I told him I understood his concerns and I sympathized with his position, but that did little to appease him. I hadn’t expected it to.

“Then you cannot even do me the courtesy of informing me when you release criminal elements onto the station. I can’t to continue to provide security on Deep Space Nine if Starfleet is going to undermine my rules and give criminals free access to the promenade. May I remind you,” he said hotly, “that your approach has already resulted in the injury of a civilian? That the stab wound was only superficial was pure luck!”

Odo had hit his stride; he had something to say and he was going to say it no matter what I did. “He—Quark—could have been killed if the knife had slipped between his ribs and punctured his left ventricle. Were it up to me, I would have pressed charges regardless of _your_ wishes, but Quark can be shockingly reckless when it comes to his financial pursuits—yes, I do know you offered him a bribe…” et cetera, et cetera.

I sat back and listened as his argument against my methods rapidly veered into a tirade that was more about Quark than the state of station security, punctuated by accusations of my negligence. His concern about Grathon Tolar was warranted, but the rest of his objections were feeble. He could hardly make the case that our quiet shipment of biomimetic gel would affect his security operations that significantly, and Tolar was confined to quarters, which Odo already knew. And the details of Quark’s poor decision making were irrelevant.

That was when I realized Odo wasn’t just here to chastise me for making his job difficult. No, this rant was the sort of fruitless display you make when you know that the people who come first for you do not—cannot—come first for everyone else, but you can’t let it go without _objecting_.

So... there it is, I suppose. I honestly believe he was angry that my choices had led to Quark's injury. The biomimetic gel and the frustration about Starfleet meddling were just excuses to come in and show it.

Even as I’ve had to conduct this operation in secret, away from the prying eyes of the station’s crew, and even as the war has forced me to make decisions I wish I’d had more time to go over with my people, I’ve tried to make sure I never stopped paying attention to what’s going on with my crew. Odo and Quark included. And it wasn’t so long ago that Quark became the target of a vendetta by another Ferengi. The conflict escalated to a degree of violence that, frankly, came as a surprise to me. Quark has a history of getting in over his head with shady characters, but this was the closest he’d ever come to actually drowning. I suspected at the time, and can now reasonably confirm, that Odo was shaken by the incident. Afterwards, his surveillance of Quark’s bar increased for a time, bordering on obsessive.

Well, more obsessive than Odo usually is, anyway.

I had assumed that it was nothing more than frustration over his own failure to maintain order, a feat he clearly prides himself on. Now, I think his reaction was motivated by something beyond the professional, too. I think those two—Quark and Odo—must care about each other a great deal, despite their prickly behavior.

I let Odo finish, then told him not to worry; that my Starfleet project was near completion and he could look forward to Tolar being removed from the station very soon. I encouraged him to increase security if he thought it was necessary. Flustered, he told me to see that this didn’t happen again, and had the self-awareness to look a bit chagrined as he left my office.

I suppose what really threw me is that I, shamefully, had forgotten that Odo has his own attachments on Deep Space Nine, aside from his work. I had started to believe it was his innate instinct justice and fairness that kept him from returning to his own people. I even envied him for what I thought was cool detachment, when I was fighting to keep my composure as I watched the casualty reports come in every week.

Seems naïve of me now. Of course Odo has people he worries about—plural, not just Quark; though there’s definitely something a bit, uh, _special_ between them. He’s just so good at hiding it, he actually managed to fool me for a while.

I won’t be so quick to take Odo’s cool impartiality for granted as the war goes on. It was nothing but a detail this time, but conflict stretches us all to our limits, and I don’t doubt that Odo will find himself spread very thin. From now on, I’ll remember he is not without his own attachments.

Computer, delete everything before those last three sentences. End log.

**Author's Note:**

> "have you ever danced with the devil" is a reference to the quote the episode title "in the pale moonlight" was pulled from.
> 
> anyway i needed 500% more odo worrying about his fragile solid friends in the series
> 
> P.S. sisko's voice was a bit of a challenge; i hope it worked out


End file.
